Met Stars: Anna Netrebko

From July 2020 to May 2021, tens of thousands of opera lovers tuned in to the Met Stars Live in Concert series to see some of today’s greatest artists perform from striking location around the globe. In early February, the world’s reigning diva, Anna Netrebko, joined the series from a truly unique venue: the historic Spanish Riding School at Vienna’s Hofburg Palace. Accompanied by longtime collaborator Pavel Nebolsin on the piano, the celebrated soprano offered a program of ravishing Russian songs, operatic arias, and music by Strauss, Debussy, Fauré, and more. Later on in the evening, mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova joined Netrebko for a pair of duets from Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades and Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann. For Met audiences familiar with Netrebko’s gutsy portrayals of opera’s most formidable heroines, this concert offered a more intimate look at one of today’s most extraordinary talents.